Fallen Beauty

When the dogwoods  move from what I love to call the 'star stage'-- their blossoms only miniature versions of the bloom to come-- and open up into the milky white 'moons' of their full blossoms, then Spring has established its hold on the woods. So when I went out to walk earlier this week and discovered the wind had broken off an old slender dogwood at it's throat, and left its beautiful canopy spread out across the gravel of the drive, I was saddened.   It was an old dogwood, already only a whisper of its former self, but it continued each year to bloom, a wonderful splash of white along the curve of the driveway.

I stood over the fallen beauty and struggled with what to do next.  The tree top was still partly attached  and I could see the degeneration in the trunk that had made it susceptible to the force of the thunderstorm.  There was no chance of it surviving the break. The logical tidy thing would be to get my saw and finish the job.  I sighed and went on with my walk.  Maybe later.

Later came after lunch as I walked down to the mailbox.  Passing the fallen beauty again, I marveled at the lush blooms.  It seemed oblivious to its fate.  It was simply carrying on, enjoying the attentions of the bees, it's moons now turning to keep their gaze heavenward.  I went back to  my other tasks.  Days passed.   I clipped a few small limbs and brought them into the house to add to my wild azalea and sweet shrub arrangements.

The night before the arrival of the bulky garbage truck I reached down into the mass of blossoms and pulled them away from its path, thinking my act of mercy might finish what the wind started. Despite it's ancient state, I could feel the trees fierce attachment to its trunk.  It seemed to groan slightly, as if it were being turned in bed.  I thought of my own mother, in those last weeks of her life, who kept her own face turned heavenward, despite all our gentle turnings.  Like the dogwood, her slenderness masked the strength of the life left within her. I knew then I would wait on to cut the dogwood.  This was its final spring and to me it was important to allow it to complete this last beautiful act which in my eyes, had been made even more exquisite by the work of the storm.

It is the same for us isn't it?  Aging, illness, suffering--our lives are full of it. Every day brings all kinds of death and endings, some easy, even welcome; others only with great sorrow and after a long holding on.  We learn early to endure, but we should not forget, there is a powerful force in all of us that knows life is far more than enduring; a pulse inside every one of us that can, if we allow it, create the beautiful and precious in the most terrible and heartbreaking of circumstances. It is a strange and mysterious gift, this fallen beauty, but it alone has the power to make meaning out of living, to turn our gaze upward from the white moons of the dogwood spread across the gravel at our feet and feel again, the fierce attachment within us to what is there.